A really awful thing happened to a good friend of mine yesterday. While cooking dinner, a large pot of boiling water slipped from her hands and splashed up causing second degree burns all over her face. She is in a great amount of pain, which unfortunately is a good thing, because it means the nerve endings are still active in her skin and she has a good chance of making a full recovery, but not without several surgeries and a lot more pain. This is after an extremely awful year full of deaths, a break up, and other various forms of turmoil.
She IM’d me this morning at work (I’m her boss so this is normal) to fill me in on the details and let me know that she obviously wouldn’t be working for the next couple of weeks. We started talking about the accident and how she was dealing with it and I was shocked at how well she was handling it. Obviously she was upset, and in pain, and worried about the burn scars, but outside of that, she kept telling me how she knew that something fantastic had to come from this, that she was so grateful that it wasn’t one of her kids, or her dog that had been hurt, and that while she was really sad about all of this, she knew that she would make it through.
We cried together, (via IM of course) and she admitted to me that even though she knew she was going to be okay, she was really upset about how her face looked, almost more so than the pain. She laughed it off and knew that she was being superficial, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
So based on this conversation, I started to ask myself, what is beauty anyway?
We can all say that we don’t care about superficial looks, that our wrinkles, sagging areas and graying hairs don’t really bother us, but is that ever really true?
I’m one of the major yellers out there about loving yourself the way you are, bigger is beautiful, wrinkles rock, whatever, but if I was truly honest with myself, I'm not happy with my saddle bags, I often catch myself trying to pull my double chin back into my face where it belongs.
When we can admit that yes, we are a little vain, and yes, we are very sad about the ravages of time, and boiling water, but still see the beauty in ourselves, and the world around us despite it, thats more like what I think is beautiful.
My friend Laura, with her scarred face, her swollen lips, her occasional tears, and her amazing attitude, she is beautiful. Her faith in God, her faith in her body to heal itself, that is beauty.
I only hope to be as beautiful as her someday.
1 comment:
This dear friend of your is a very BRAVE human being. Most people would not be Thankfull or caring. She is to be loved, treasured and honored. Please give her a gentle hug from this old woman whom admires her spirit and courage.
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